Clan Building System: I'm not the Protagonist?!-Chapter 100: A Random Family [1]

Meanwhile, at the Gu Family Council:

Gu Jian sat high upon the patriarch’s seat, expression carved in stone as chaos churned beneath him.

The great hall echoed with the clamor of over sixty elders, their voices overlapping in heated argument.

The matter at hand: whether or not to confront the one known as the Sword Demon, Khai Sang of Ghost Cliff Pass.

One by one, the elders voiced their discontent, their agitation growing louder than reason.

Even among them, ten bore the title of Grand Elder, Golden Core cultivators, their status commanding both reverence and stubborn pride.

Gu Jian exhaled slowly, fingers stroking his pointed goatee in restrained frustration. These old fools... They’ve grown so used to power, they’ve forgotten prudence.

In all the Northern Regions, only two clans wielded the fearsome power of the Nascent Soul realm, his own Gu Family, and the Lin Family.

And now, that fragile balance had been disturbed.

The meeting’s true catalyst wasn’t Khai Sang. No—it was Gu Zhen, his son.

Gu Jian’s gaze darkened.

Days ago, that ungrateful brat had the gall to storm out without permission, dragging the family’s finest young cultivators to ambush Lin Zhaoyue, the Lin Family’s only Nascent Soul cultivator.

And then... he came back humiliated, blaming everything on Khai Sang’s interference.

"If that Sword Demon hadn’t appeared," Gu Zhen had said, standing proud despite the disgrace, "I would’ve captured her with ease!"

Gu Jian’s knuckles whitened on the armrest.

Captured her? Lin Zhaoyue, the so-called Queen of Ice was no mere woman to be trifled with.

She would be turning thirty in less than a month, and had already reached mid-stage Nascent Soul.

That alone was a terrifying feat.

Even Fang Yuan, for all his renown, was rumored to be at the early stage at best.

Rumored.

But Gu Jian knew better.

Because unlike the rest of the empire who dismissed the truth as madness, the Gu Family and the Royal Qin Clan knew the horrifying secret: Fang Yuan wasn’t just at the early stage of Nascent Soul.

He was hiding it. They knew he wasn’t merely at the early stages of Nascent Soul. He was beyond it!

As the elders’ voices escalated again, Gu Jian raised his hand.

"Enough," he said, his voice calm but edged with steel.

The hall fell silent.

Gu Jian slowly rose to his feet, robes pooled around him like spilled ink, voice cutting through the noise like a drawn blade.

"Think, all of you," he said, tone laced with disdain. "Khai Sang is not who we should be focusing on."

An elder slammed his palm on the table. "But Patriarch, this is a matter of pride! Our family’s reputation was dragged through the mud by that Sword Demon!"

Murmurs of agreement followed, dozens of wrinkled heads nodding, fists clenched, old blood boiling with wounded ego.

Gu Jian’s eyes narrowed. His voice cracked like thunder.

"Pride? Then let’s talk about pride!"

He jabbed a finger forward, silencing the hall with sheer force of presence.

"What about the Fang Family? We demanded spirit stones to aid in our recovery. Reasonable, wasn’t it? And how do they answer?"

He sneered.

"Not with quiet submission. Not with respect. No, they announce they’ll send it by caravan, of all things!"

The elders blinked, uncertain.

Gu Jian stepped down from the dais, voice rising, scathing and scornful.

"A caravan! To crawl its way through a dozen mountain passes, through bandit lands and monster dens. They want the world to see it. Want everyone to hear: ’Come, take it from us. Rob the Gu Family blind.’"

His fist slammed into the table with a dull boom.

"If that’s not a blatant act of disrespect, then tell me, what is?!"

The room trembled under his fury.

He swept his gaze over the stunned elders, lips curling.

"So shut the fuck up... and get your priorities straight."

Silence. Heavy and suffocating.

No elder dared breathe, much less speak. Their anger fizzled under the weight of cold, brutal logic.

Gu Jian’s voice rang out once more, sharp as a sword and heavy with meaning.

"Yes, Khai Sang humiliated our young geniuses," he said, letting the words hang in the air. "But did he kill any of them?"

He swept his gaze across the elders.

"Not a single one returned as a corpse."

He paused.

"Not a single one."

His voice dropped to a whisper that scraped like gravel over stone.

"Is that not enough to show he still holds some respect for the Gu Family name?"

Then his tone sharpened, scornful and cold.

"Now imagine! imagine if it had been Fang Yuan instead of Khai Sang."

He let the silence stretch, and then:

"None of them would have returned."

Murmurs of unease rippled through the room.

"Our clan’s future would have been crippled. Our name dragged through the mud. We’d be the laughingstock of the empire."

He took a deep breath, voice steadying as he addressed the elders again.

"Fellow elders... your sons were raised on elixirs, not on experience."

His eyes flicked toward a few familiar faces, elders whose pride in their sons had grown too loud too fast.

"They flaunt their cultivation, but even a seasoned Qi Transformation rogue could humble them in the wild."

His voice turned firm, almost fatherly in tone.

"Curb their ego. For their sake and ours."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, the gesture of a man wearied by fools.

"Elixirs can raise cultivation. But only hardship can raise a cultivator."

Gu Jian then exhaled, slow and deep.

He reached for a silk tissue, dabbing his lips with deliberate calm as if wiping away the last trace of emotion.

When he spoke again, his tone was composed but no less dangerous.

"Back to topic, the Fang Family has recently severed all business ties with us," he said quietly, voice as sharp as a blade sheathed in velvet. "But they are not invincible."

He swept his cold gaze across the elders.

"They’ve struck first. Fine. Let them."